Walters died when a crane failed, causing an almost 600-ton stator to fall 30 feet. The accident, which happened in a non-nuclear area of the plant, knocked the plant's Unit 2 offline for almost a month.

The company says Unit 1 was reconnected to the grid late Wednesday night. In a statement issued Thursday morning, Entergy said it used more than 790,000 man-hours, 55 tons of steel and 93 cubic yards of concrete to bring the reactor online.

Entergy owns and operates power plants with about 30,000 megawatts of electric-generating capacity, including more than 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power. The company provides electricity to 2.8 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.